Victims of child abuse in the Canberra region have spoken out and welcomed a national royal commission into child sexual abuse.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard yesterday announced a wide-ranging inquiry will investigate child abuse in institutions such as schools, churches and foster homes, and look at how authorities responded.

Pressure had been building on the Federal Government to react to growing social and political outrage at the latest series of revelations of paedophilia in society.

Most are centred on the Catholic Church, but that will not be the only focus of the inquiry, which will look into claims across the breadth of society.

Former ABC Canberra presenter Mark Giffard was abused while at a rural New South Wales boarding school.

"For too long organisationally people have been able to retreat and even though it personally is very difficult for me to talk about these issues I think it is very important simply because you do need to keep focusing a light on this," he said.

Mr Giffard says the commission will allow individual stories to be told.

"In a sense focusing on those individual stories and impact that this particular abuse has had on the lives of people that will bring home to people, make them understand, just what a long-term impact this breach of trust has," he said.

"It doesn't just happen in isolation. It affects materially their families, their loved ones and it just ripples on through the generations."

"This is going to be a landmark royal commission for Australia and sadly many people are going to be shocked and saddened by what they are going to hear.

"Hopefully from out of this cathartic experience that is going to occur Australia wide we're going to make sure that children are going to be protected in the future and we just never see these sorts of abuses in institutions ever again."

Mr Parkinson says there will need to be more than one royal commissioner to deal with the content.

"People have to be heard. The victims were silenced at the time of their abuse and because of the nature of child sexual abuse they've been silent through their lives. They haven't been able to come out and talk about it," he said.

"Generally it's around the age of late 40s early 50s, it's like a bell ringing in their heads, they then have to deal with it and that's why you see most of the people that come forward come forward after 20 or 30 years.

"That delay is very human. But also that delay is what has protected paedophiles for so many years."

He says he expects many more victims will come forward.

"Now as adults they've had enough. There will be very many who will want to get into a witness box, name names and assist everyone else," he said.

Mr Parkinson says many ACT residents are going to be shocked and saddened by the extent of abuse.

'Ready to assist'

Church and government leaders in the ACT are pledging their support to the commission.

ACT Chief Minister Katy Gallagher says she stands ready to assist in any way she can.

"I welcome it. I think certainly with the amount of victims that have come forward, particularly in the recent weeks, we do need to have a national look at this," she said.

"I have no doubt that there'll be people who'll want to participate locally and I think a national approach is the way to go.

"The only way people can understand and learn and change systems is when you have a far-reaching inquiry that looks at this."

The Bishop of the Anglican Diocese of Canberra and Goulburn, Stuart Robinson, says he welcomes the scope of the inquiry and will cooperate fully with the process.

"I think what it will do is identify some of the weaknesses and then suggest ways forward which cooperatively we'll embrace totally so that we can say with a very clear heart that we have processes and protocols in place which will stop people from being treated in a way which is inappropriate," he said.

Bishop Robinson says he supports any move that promotes transparency and protection of people.

"Invariably it will turn up things which will cause individuals and churches a measure of pain but they do need to be dealt with and people need to be cared for in such a way that they know they're loved and precious," he said.

Doctor Sue Packer from the National Association for Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect says the commission is long overdue.

"At the same time I have reservations about how much it can achieve on its own and my hope is that it will make us more aware of these issues so we're able to protect more children in the future," she said.

ABC News Breakfast, November 13: Two of Anthony and Chrissie Foster's daughters were raped by a Catholic priest. They shared their response to the announcement of a royal commission with ABC News Breakfast.

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